NICK HENNEN: Now I See — What Is It About Death?

Like birth, I think the hour of our death is very meaningful, whether our earthly minds allow us to solve the puzzle or not. It is drenched in meaning, here and also somewhere else. The year, month, day, hour and second — it is already written for each of us.

My father, “Pops” and “Papa.”

I think I’m lucky in that I can see the light of that meaning, glowing like a street lantern illuminating my steps through a blackened night, but I can’t really articulate my grief. I am not able to explain what happens to me when it comes knocking. And that’s actually the hardest part.

I have accepted the death of my father, then mentor, then mother. My mind has yet to fully grasp what else it is I’m supposed to know about my devotion to each of them, about their part in the play of my life and about how and why we came to love each other.

Dad spent a lifetime in broadcasting and loved teaching us kids the ropes.

And with all three, feelings of great significance wash over me on certain days, like when they left or on dates of things we celebrated together. It starts off as a really strong feeling. I will wonder, what is it? What’s wrong? And then I notice the date, or a that a date is coming instead of the other way around. These are signposts I think, and evidence to some kind of intelligent communication from beyond.

Somedays I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a rabbit hole. “Mom, are you there?” I call out to myself in the quiet. I talk to all three of these souls like they are with me all the time. I’m not even embarrassed about it.

Me and my mentor, Alan Colmes in 2015.

Sometimes I’m stopped cold when their presence pops into my reality and I spin into another dimension. Like the reoccurring thought chasing me lately, that my mentor never saw me transform (as much, only just the beginning … and man, was he accepting!) into the stronger, taller and uniquely complex man I am today. I was a different person entirely when I saw him last. That hurts and like a razor cut it bleeds slowly and painfully. “But I look so different now,”I say softly as if he can hear me.

For my father, it is simply true that he is everywhere with me. If I’m having a bad day, I reach for his Minnesota Twins cap. I chose it after he died because it was the most worn. Dark sweat stains along the rim, knowing they were his made me feel close to him. I loved him enough that I feel like we never left each other, that instead he is now just slightly out of reach.

I think I’m getting there with my father and mentor. Not 100 percent, mind you, but I’m no longer in the weird stages of grief where you never know what to expect.

I’m not there for mom yet. A mom is such a big thing, yes? That’s part of it I’m sure.

“Mommy!” We all can imagine saying this, or feel the orphaned reality when we utter those words, or just you know, watch “Bambi.” Mom is mom all day, and she was important to me in so many ways and, and it is still so very new it seems.

And it is also true that I’m exhausted by grief, so I put it off until my body is begging me to stop. To turn off the music, shut down the laptop, to put away the pen and paper, switch off the lights, back away from the world and just grieve. Even then, “I don’t want to,” my mind will argue. “I’m busy!” “I can’t today. I’m too tired,” “hurts too much,” “I don’t like to cry,”on and on with the excuses of the mind. But in time I give in and tears flow a little bit.

It’s like trimming the hedges. You put it off by snipping a few clips here and there until at once you realize it’s grown tall enough to block your sun.

I imagine I could use a raging sob, which is very cathartic right? I’m just not sure where to find it. When is the last time you sobbed? I like the idea because it puts a focus on the physical and occurs mostly outside of the mind.

Sudden deaths like my father and mentor came easy. I shouldn’t say that, they came whether I wanted them to or not. The process began like a break in a dam. There wasn’t a second for debate on when this event would occur. The wave hit me the moment I learned. Like tripping and falling as the water slams your body further into the ocean floor, it is unexpected and without reserve. I lost myself in the news, but when someone is slowly dying over time, a pattern of grief emerges that becomes much more complex.

There is guilt and anger and all of the stages of grief, but they are entirely different when that someone spent so much time being completely vulnerable.

While alive, you grieve what they once were but you’re still celebrating their life. And in the end, every single breath. After they leave, you realize your small pond of grief has become an ocean. It feels overwhelming.

I know I need to take that time to open the door to the moment of her death. I haven’t done this yet. I have only experienced and then ran away from it. I think doing so will feel like making a conscious, though anxious decision to cliff dive. To leave earth for a bit flailing wildly into the unknown. To crash into the cool waters below, and to eventually heal.

I will. I will. I can’t just yet but I am looking forward to the time when I can tell my mind a story about the good, bad, ugly, great reality of all the memories that make up our relationship as mother and son.